Certain residents of Park Slope might have noticed that Community Bookstore was closed two Sunday mornings ago for a film crew.
Well, it seems that Rudy Delson and company were busy making a little video to promote his new book, Maynard and Jennica. Rudy does viral marketing. If you like the video, you’ll love his Brooklyn Reading Works reading on September 20th at 8 p.m. at the Old Stone House.
Come this Thursday to Brooklyn Reading Works and hear Rudy Delson and friends read from his brand new book, Maynard and Jennica.
Afterwards, party down and schmooze with neighbors, friends, and the literati of Brooklyn. Rudy will be bringing cheese (and wine). Here’s the note from Rudy:
I ordered two and a half cases of wine at Big Nose, Full Body
yesterday. With the case you’re bringing, I imagine that will be more than enough.My plan, basically, is to buy one wedge of whatever cheeses look good at the
Coop on Thursday morning, and then to make little labels for them.
(How high class is that?)
Read the poem about Marilyn the Tortoise that everyone loved at the Marilyn Monroe 80th Birthday Bash at Brooklyn Reading Works in June of 2006.
It’s a real knock out, tour de force poem. You gotta hear Michele Madigan Somerville read it. Maybe she’ll read it again at the Poetry Punch group reading on November 15th at the Old Stone House. Here’s an excerpt but you can read the rest at Fresh Poetry, Michele’s blog.
In ’69 Marilyn the Tortoise, was bequeathed
to my brothers and me by our drug-dealing Cuban
superintendent who, running one step ahead of
the local Vice Squad, was forced to leave his French
Provincial sectional mustard velveteen
sofa and the largest RCA model television money
could buy. He packed up what he could
of his tight cellar dwelling in haste, pausing to leave his family
pet, Marilyn, behind. She lived her truncated reptilian
life in a roasting pan lined with gravel; she ate lettuce
when we thought to feed her and had little choice
but to shit where she ate. Thinking her dead, one day,
we discarded her. Little did we know, tortoises fly
in the face of time — almost as if death fails
to tunnel into the tender part of their living meat…(excerpt)
Did you read the one about Manny Howard, the urban farmer guy, in New York Magazine? You know, the guy who wanted to test the idea of the locavore movement by growing a garden in his Ditmas Park backyard?
He wanted to see if he could eat off the land for a month by growing vegetables, raising rabbits, and making homegrown whiskey (which he never got around to).
In the process, he spent $11,000, did some things right and others wildly wrong, and really seemed to piss off his wife. Part of the farm was destroyed by the Brooklyn tornado of 2007. Serves him right: the whole thing was for a book deal, right?
I have to say, it made for a good story. I liked the way it was written. The whole thing was such an interesting fiasco. And very informative, too.
Apparently New York Magazine was barraged with letters from annoyed readers. But sometimes those New York Magazine articles are intended to incite readers. Right?
I think it was sincere in a New York Magazine kind of way.
Someone wrote in to say that Manny should have scrapped the whole idea and given his $11,000 to a local CSA. But what about the rabbits? He wanted to eat meat, too. I wonder if he will now join the local CSA. Or is he writing this whole fiasco into a book.
My guess is look for it in bookstores in about a year or so.
I thought this sounded interesting. It’s a philanthropic co-ed sports league and it’s coming to Brooklyn this fall with kick ball in Prospect Park and Touch Football at Brooklyn Tech. For more info: go to Zogsports.org
ZogSports, the charity-focused, social, co-ed sports league
for young professionals in their 20s and 30s, is coming to Brooklyn
for the first time this fall.
Our Kickball league started this past Sunday but there is still
room for people to sign up for our awesome co-ed Touch Football league!ZogSports has spent the last four years helping young
New Yorkers break the monotony of the typical day – work/gym/bar/home – by
offering sports leagues, trips, social events, and volunteer
opportunities. To date, they have brought together 33,000+ participants
and given more than $290,000 to charity.This fall, ZogSports expands to Brooklyn with Kickball
in Prospect
Park and Touch Football at Brooklyn
Tech.Participants can sign up as an entire team or as an
individual/small group and we’ll place them on a team. Teammates get to
know each other at the organized post-game happy hours at local bars.As a philanthropy-focused organization, ZogSports
donates a portion of all proceeds to charity, and helps all participants Play
For Your Cause by making donations to winning teams’ charities of choice.
Teams have the opportunity to win both on the field as well as off, with awards
given for Best Team Name, Best Team Spirit, and Best Happy Hour Team. ZogSports
also partners with local charitable organizations to promote/co-sponsor their
events, and organizes charity events of its own.
Petra, of Bed-Stuy blog, sent this announcement about the Brooklyn Blogade on September 30th at 1 p.m.
Not only are these events great get-togethers for bloggers, blog readers, and would-be bloggers, but they’re a fun way to get to know a new neighborhood and eat at a local restaurant. Here’s the info from Petra:
If you’re a blogger, or thinking about becoming one, join us at our monthly gathering at the French African restaurant, Le Toukouleur on September 30th at 1 p.m.
Spouses and significant others are welcome! Meet and mingle with the
cool folks who blog all over our borough. The September Brooklyn Blogade will be in Bed-Stuy, hosted by Bed-Stuy Blog. Here are the details:
Sunday, September 30th
1:00 p.m.
Le Toukouleur Restaurant, 1116 Bedford Avenue @ Quincy Street
Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Cost: $10 per person
RSVP by Wednesday, September 26thMenu
Your choice of:Skirt steak on baguette with moutarde de Dijon (includes fries and
mixed green salad)
***
Croque Monsieur (includes fries and mixed green salad) – The croque
monsieur is like a French version of a hot ham and cheese sandwich, in
case you’re wondering.
***
Chicken Salad with Avocado and Cranberry Dressing
***
Granola with Yogurt and Fresh Fruit Salad
***
Coffee, hot tea, iced tea, and orange, tomato, peach, cranberry or
apple juicesTo RSVP: Please send an email to thechangeling@bedstuyblog.com with
your brunch selection and the number of people you are bringing (and
their brunch selections too).Directions to Le Toukouleur:
Take the G train (yes, the G train) to Bedford-Nostrand. Once you
arrive at the train stain, exit through the Bedford Avenue exit, and
you’ll be at the intersection of Bedford and Lafayette. Walk south on
Bedford, against the traffic, 4 blocks to Quincy Street. Le
Toukouleur is located on the southwest corner of Bedford and Quincy.I look forward to seeing you all there!
Sincerely,
Petra
Benjamin Kabak’s blog, Second Avenue Saga, is about the New York subway. He is a native New Yorker and a huge subway buff. He’s one of those people who is obsessed with trains. He likes riding them, reading about them and writing about them.
Kabak, like many of us, was dismayed by Gersh Kuntzman’s recent editorial in the Brooklyn Paper against an F Train Express. I think it’s a perfectly good idea and a legitimate use of train tracks that already exist.
While the F Train Express may do little to help those in Brownstone Brooklyn it will be a service to those who live farther out on the line. What’s wrong with that?
This morning, Kabak sent me this note about a letter to the editor that will hopefully be in the Brooklyn Paper this week. I won’t print it here because I don’t want to jeopardize its being in the Paper. You can, however, read it on Kabak’s blog.
I always thought everyone supported the F Express Plan.
Who wouldn’t want more train service and express train options for
underserved and overcrowded parts of Brooklyn? It seemed like a
no-brainer to me. Boy, was I naïve in this thinking.Last week, Gersh Kuntzman’s Brooklyn weekly The Brooklyn Paper ran a scathing (and, in my opinion, very short-sighted) editorial entitled “Who needs an F express?”
As you may have guessed from the non-too-subtle title, Kuntzman,
supposedly a champion of Brooklyn, isn’t in favor of this added train
service on tracks that have existed since these subway lines opened in
the 1930s.In response to this outrageous editorial, I wrote a letter to the
editor. The letter, co-signed by the other two major proponents of the
F Express Plan, Gary Reilly, the driving force behind the F Express and
author of Brooklyn Streets, Carroll Gardens, and Jen from Kensington (Brooklyn), disputes every contention made by The Brooklyn Paper in its editorial. While we hope the letter will appear in an upcoming issue of the paper, here it is in its entirety:
Seeing Green says, go see Romance and Cigarettes, the new film by Park Slope’s very own and beloved John Turturro.
Brooklyn-born and Park Slope resident John Turturro wrote and directed the film Romance and Cigarettes, currently showing at the Film Forum
in Manhattan. The film was deemed not releasable by Sony Pictures, and
held up almost two years; it is now distributed by Turturro himself.
His previous film, Iluminata, about a playwright struggling
to produce his new play, was no more mainstream than this one, and we
should be grateful for the continued exercise of Turturro’s lively
imagination.This is an extraordinarily original, highly entertaining and very
funny film featuring a stellar cast (James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon,
Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken, Mary-Louise Parker
among others, many of whom also appear in his previous film) and a
supporting cast of sundry blue-collar-type singer/dancers, having the
time of their lives in a bawdy (is it ever) kind-of-musical with oldie songs you thought you’d forgotten (try Connie Francis’s Scapricciatiello (Do You Love Me Like You Kiss Me).
From her weather tower on Coney Island, here’s today’s weather by Rose at 8 a.m.
"Almost like yesterday. It’s on the breezy side but sunny and going to reach about 70. It’s 58 degrees now and on the cool side. But it’s going to be nice…"
Did you see the City Section’s piece by David Helene, a 17-year old Packer student, who lives in Cobble Hill? Wonder what they thought of it over at Berkeley Carroll? I guess it’s just one kid’s opinion but it seemed pretty ridiculous to me. Wonder why the Times’ kept it in.
I don’t go to Park Slope much. I have friend who live there but I think the kids who go to Berkeley Carroll are kind of cocky. The partying is also way more intense there than over here. They drink a lot more than we do, and I’ve heard that the drug use may be a little more.
I loved Jake Mooney’s piece, Angst Amid the Artichokes, about the teenagers who work at C-Town on 9th Street.
Teenagers are everywhere at C-Town, which, in addition to being one of the neighborhood’s larger and better-stocked grocery stores, is a teen-centered ecosystem of raised voises, boredom and text messages.
Here’s an excerpt from New York Shitty about life with pink hair and more.
My buddy Rachael and I recently discussed the pros and cons of having
pink hair. I told her that though I found it enjoyable, blue seems to
better suit me. She concurred, stating “When I have pink hair it makes
people want to touch me”.
Rudolph Delson, hot new author of the not new novel, Maynard and Jennica, will be doing his FIRST reading at Brooklyn Reading Works on Thursday September 20, at 8 p.m. at the Old Stone House.
This funny, wise, deep and ambitious novel weaves together dozens
of voices to create an unusual post-9/11 love story that’s a real page turner.
Told in multiple voices, excerpts from the novel will be read by a bunch of writers and friends of the author.
Here’s the blurb:
Maynard Gogarty is a defeated musician, a reformed misanthrope who
makes a hobby of surreptitiously filming the fashion faux pas of New
York City commuters. On an uptown 6 train in the sweltering summer of
2000 he meets Jennica Green, a nostalgic Californian who calculates
that she�s been lonesome 68.53 percent of her adult life. Though their
initial acquaintance is fleeting, when fate next brings them together,
at a screening of Maynard�s film, romance intrudes. And as with most
things in life, everyone has an opinion.In the case of Maynard & Jennica, everyone includes many living and
some dead relatives, a sultry scam artist who may or may not be Russian
or Israeli or German, a hip-hop impresario named Puppy Jones, several
dubious lawyers, a long-lost best friend, and a freelance contributor
to The New Yorker. Exuberantly illuminating much that is telling (and
often horrifying) about our times, fast-paced, and wryly funny, Maynard
& Jennica introduces an astonishing number of narrators —
thirty-five in all — while remaining true to the relationships at its
heart. The result is an uproarious and deeply moving tour de force.
Delson has given us a pair of lovers who are flawed, complex, at once
eccentric and deeply familiar — and in whose story we continue to feel
invested long after we’ve turned the last page.
Michele Madigan Somerville is serving up hearty helpings of fresh poetry daily at one of my favorite new blogs. Here’s just one of her haiku offerings.
Lately I Have Been Trying to Be More
like the Dalai Lama.
But how can I be,when I feel
so Jake LaMotta?
Go to Smugmug. Or is it Smugmuggle?
Whatever. You gotta see the great photographs Hugh Crawford (Mr. No Words_Daily Pix) took in front of the Community Bookstore on the night of the their big Harry Potter release party in July.
If you were there, there may be a photo of YOU or your KIDS.
THESE PICTURES ARE SO GOOOOOD. Yes, he’s my husband and I love his pix but these are REALLY GOOD.
I spent a fun half-hour browsing tables at yesterday’s Brooklyn Book Festival. I also caught the tail end of a very interesting reading and discussion on the stage across from Borough Hall called Rhythm Maps, featuring Staceyann Chin, Steve Dalachinsky, Gregory Pardlo, and Danny Simmons.
Apparently 10,000 people enjoyed this day of books. The weather was perfect for browsing, listening to writers reading, and chit chatting with vendors, writers and friends.
The selection of publishing vendors was geographically diverse but it included plenty of Brooklyn-based groups including, the NY Writers Coalition Inc., One Story, Outside the Box Publishing, Pathfinder Books, PEN American Center, Poets & Writers, Polytechnic University, Power House Books/ Power House Arenas, Red Pill Press, Seven Stories Press, Sleepingfish, Small Beer Press, Soft Skull/Counterpoint, Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers, The Green-Wood Historic Fund, The Saint Ann’s Review, Tin House and many more.
I bought three beautifully designed editions of novellas from a series by Melville House Publishing called "The Art of the Novella." I got The Dead by James Joyce, Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville, and First Love by Ivan Turgenev.
Good subway reading, I got these three of my favorite pieces of literature for Teen Spirit.
The Melville House series celebrates the novella, a form that is too short to be a novel and too long to be a short story and is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers.
I didn’t make it to any of the other readings. Did you? Do tell.
When Jamie Livingston, photographer, filmmaker, circus performer,
accordian player, Mets fan, and above all, loyal friend, died
on October 25th (his birthday) in 1997 at the age of 41, he left behind
hundreds of bereft friends and thousands of photographs neatly
organized in small suitcases and wooden fruit crates.
Jamie took a Polaroid once a day, every day, including his last, for 18 years.
This
photographic diary, which he called, "Polaroid of the Day," or P.O.D.,
began when Jaime was a student at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson.
The project continued when he moved to apartments in New York City
including the incredible circus memorabelia-filled loft on Fulton
Street, which he shared with his best friend. That loft was the site of
many a Glug party, an "orphans thanksgiving," a super-8 festival of
Jamie’s lyrical films, and a rollicking music jam.
An exhibition of this work, will be on view Bard College in honor of the 10th anniversary of his death.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
1979-1997
6,697 Polaroids, dated in sequence
Exhibition runs from October 13-28, 2007
Reception: October 20, 2007
Bard College
Bertelsmann Campus Center
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
organized by Friends of Jamie
Sponsored by the Bard-St. Stephens’s Alumni/ae Assocation
For more information, contact info@photooftheday.net
Here’s something new from our pal Pete who had this to say about Sally Fields acceptance speech on the Emmy’s last night.
Did anybody hear Sally Field’s acceptance speech at the Emmy’s last night? (She won for her role as the matriarch on "Brother and Sisters.") It was bleeped by the FOX TV censors. Isn’t that amazing and appalling in and of itself? She was saying this when they cut off her sound: "If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn’t be any god-damned wars in the first place… we wouldn’t be sending our children off to be slaughtered."
I love Sally Field’s work, and I think FOX has become a pathetic cog in the neo-con machine, BUT… I have to say this to Ms. Field – George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, David Petreus, Paul Wolfowitz and all the rest of the maniacal men in this administration who’ve debased themselves and our country over these last six years all had mothers!
It’s a nice fantasy to imagine a world in which loving, benign mothers forever protected their children from harm, but as long as said mothers (in collusion with fathers) continue to create self-centered pathological narcissists in the many ways that I’ve outlined here before, then their sons will continue to do much harm in the world. Sorry, moms, but we’re all in this together.
See you there. I will be wandering around with my postcards for Thursday’s reading by Rudy Delson at Brooklyn Reading Works (8 p.m. at the Old Stone House on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets).
Diaper Diva has been telling me for days and I keep forgetting to post about it. I see that Gowanus Lounge has the story today.
Starting September 17th, the Third Street Playground will be closed for renovations. Back in 1991, they closed for almost a year when they first transformed the playground from an old style NYC playground (wooden see saws, metal jungle gyms, etc) into what you see there today.
That was when we first moved here and I had a newborn baby and I was so MAD. One of the reasons I’d moved to Park Slope was that playground! When it reopened all the caregivers complained because there was hardly any shade and the black rubber made the space so hot in warm weather.
I guess it’s in need of some changes and upgrades again.
Last week, Diaper Diva, Ducky, and I were wandering around Long Meadow and saw large groupings of caregivers, parents and children in the meadow like refugees with nowhere to be. The playground was closed that day, too.
Where will all these people go?
There’s always the Tot Spot at Garfeld just inside the park but that’s tiny and is designed for small children. There’s alwaysthe 9th Street Playground and the playground in JJ Byrne Park and the one on Berkeley Place between 6th and 7th Avenues.
Gowanus Lounge has more.
Look what Sustainable Flatbush is up to:
FLATBUSH FROLIC, SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 16th from 11am – 6pm
Sustainable Flatbush will have a table at this Sunday’s 30th Annual
Flatbush Frolic street fair! We will be at Booth 118, between Argyle
and Rugby.In addition to picking up magazines and bicycle maps from
Transportation Alternatives and NYC Powerful Green Maps courtesy of
Green Apple NYC, you can test your skils with a fun Recycling Game
presented by the Department of Sanitation’s Recycling Outreach Program.The location is Cortelyou Road between Flatbush and Coney Island
Avenues, in glorious Brooklyn. There will be live bands, food,
merchandise and arts and crafts vendors exhibiting their wares –
including an emphasis on local restaurants, musicians, businesses and
artists. If you’re around, stop by and say hi!
Maybe you can help these people from Vermont identify the name of an artist they bought a painting from in the 1960’s.
I found your blog on Google and wonder if you could steer me in
identifying the artist of a painting we have hanging on our wall here
in VT.My wife, originally from Brooklyn, bought a very wonderful oil
painting on masonite of jazz musicians back in the 60’s. The artist
never signed the piece but a good clue would be that he had his home and
studio in what had been an old funeral parlor and she thinks it was near
5th Ave.Thanks for taking the time to read this and any leads would be
much appreciated.
Thanks to Eliot, who sent me this tip about grapes on Third Street. He also took the picture.
I’ve attached a cellphone picture I took this afternoon of the Third
Street organic grape harvest (south side of the street between 7th and
8th Avenues, closer to 8th). I’ve seen this harvest for the past few
years. Yes, I’ve sampled the grapes and they are really good, but they
do have pits.
Here is this week’s Smartmom from the Suburban Newspaper Association’s Newspaper of the Year, the Brooklyn Paper.
The start of the school year has been an emotional roller coaster
for Smartmom, what with so many things to worry about. Will Teen Spirit
like his new high school? Will the Oh So Feisty One adjust to her new
teachers and classmates? Will Hepcat ever finish the time-consuming
project he’s been working on for months?
And finally, will Smartmom ever get back to what she was doing before the summer vacation — whatever that was?
For
Teen Spirit, the new school year meant starting 11th grade in a new
high school. Talk about stressful. Smartmom loves the new school and
hopes that Teen Spirit will excel there, but that doesn’t mean she
stops herself from interrogating him every day when he comes home. She
can’t help herself.
“How was it? Do you like it? Do you have any homework?”
Teen Spirit finds all this very irritating and likes to keep his responses to a minimum — at least around his mother.
When
he came home with his arms and shirt splattered with paint, she found
out that he’s been working on a mural as part of a school-wide social
service project. Cool.
New school. New classes. New subway. New
routines. And, boy, is Teen Spirit glad that doesn’t have to wear a tie
and lace-up shoes to this new, more progressive school, which is the
polar opposite of his old prep school. Smartmom has her fingers crossed.
OSFO
is a lot more forthcoming when it comes to talking about school. She
started fifth grade at PS 321 and is now one of the oldest kids in the
school. A senior. A big kid. Not surprisingly, she’s excited.
But
she also misses her teachers from last year. One minute, she hates
fifth grade, the next minute, she loves it. The first night of school
she got 110 multiplication and division problems for homework.
“They have some nerve giving us so many math problems,” she told Smartmom. “I hate fifth grade.”
Smartmom
can tell that OSFO is already stressing about middle school, even
though it’s a full year away. All the kids are talking about it. Some
of them even seem to know where they want to go.
“Where am I going to go?” she’s asked Smartmom more than once. The question gives Smartmom a case of heartburn.
But
fifth grade has its fun moments, too. OSFO and a friend are walking to
school together — without adults. That’s a small step for mankind, but
is it a giant leap for OSFO.
Then there’s Hepcat. He’s been
working all summer on a Web site for a local university. He doesn’t
sleep. He doesn’t eat. And he’s barely had time to learn the names of
OSFO’s teachers or the courses that Teen Spirit is taking.
He
just codes code, talks on the phone, and looks exceedingly agitated.
Most nights, he hops into bed just minutes before Smartmom has to wake
up.
Not surprisingly, Smartmom is dying for the
project to be completed. Then he’ll have time to shave (he’s looking a
little scuzzy), to do some chores around the house (that hallway light
bulb really needs to be changed), and, perhaps most importantly, time
to pay some attention to Smartmom, who’s got her own problems to worry
about. Dumb Editor has been on her case about missing deadlines (Dumb
Editor note: Smartmom’s copy is so pristine and coherent that I have to
have something to complain about, don’t I?). She also needs to work on
her novel and drum up some freelance writing projects.
Smartmom
knows she isn’t the only one having a tough time this week. Mrs.
Kravitz is running herself ragged now that her full-time job is back in
full swing. Diaper Diva is about to begin Ducky’s prolonged phase-in to
pre-school and many of Smartmom’s friends and neighbors are busy making
appointments for middle school tours.
This week, worry seems to
be the name of the game. Smartmom hopes that Teen Spirit will put his
best foot forward at the new high school and really enjoy learning
there. She hopes OSFO will stop missing her fourth-grade teachers and
be more “in the moment” about fifth grade.
And Hepcat.
Maybe
he’ll stop working so hard, so he’ll have some time to worry, too. It’s
not much fun doing it alone. And there’s so much to worry about, isn’t
there?
For one night only — Saturday, Sept. 15 — Club Loco, the monthly teen music club, at Old First Church opens to adults (and teens over 14) to raise funds for this season.
Favorite performers, including Cool and Unusual and Dulaney Banks, will be onstage. Wine and hors d’oeuvres, soda, and chips will be served. Items such as guitar lessons and fencing lessons are up for grabs. Cover charge is $25 (adults) $10 (teens). Tickets go on sale in front of the church from 12-5 PM on Sept. 8 and 9.
Be there.
Gowanus Lounge has the goods: The Gowanus Whole Foods is delayed until 2009. What gives? Go to the Lounge to find out.
Thanks to Second Avenue Sagas for sending me this story about Apple’s search for a spot in Brooklyn. It’s beig news.
From Racked: Apple is scouring Brooklyn, seeking a home in the 718 area code for a flagship Brooklyn Apple Store, sources tell Racked. While Apple’s urge to hawk iPhones to Brooklynites is all but a certainty, what’s not known at this time is which neighborhood the computer maker is targeting for its first Brooklyn foray.